Webinar: Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki - Keio Medical Science Prize 2020

[Lecturer]
Atsushi Miyawaki, M.D., Ph.D.
Laboratory Head,
RIKEN Center for Brain Science
RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics
[Lecture Title]
Casting Light on Life
[Keio Medical Science Prize]
The Award Lecture for the 25th Keio Medical Science Prize was held on December 16.
For the first time since its establishment, the lecture was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Awarded under the Keio University Medical Science Fund since 1996, the Keio Medical Science Prize recognizes researchers from Japan and overseas who have made outstanding and creative achievements in the fields of medicine and life sciences, and whose contributions are expected to go from strength to strength in the future. It is the only prize of its kind awarded by a Japanese university, with eight recipients having gone on to become Nobel Laureates.
This year Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki, a Team Leader at RIKEN, and Dr. Aviv Regev of US biotechnology company Genentech Research and Early Development were awarded the prize for their work on their respective research themes of "Clarification of life phenomenon using pioneering molecular imaging." And "Understanding biocomplexity using single-cell genomics,"
[Abstract]
The behavior of biochemical molecules moving around in cells makes me think of a school of whales wandering in the ocean, captured by the Argus system on the artificial satellite. When bringing a whale back into the sea --- with a transmitter on its dorsal fin, every staff member hopes that it will return safely to a school of its species. A transmitter is now minute in size, but it was not this way before. There used to be some concern that a whale fitted with a transmitter could be given the cold shoulder and thus ostracized by other whales for “wearing something annoying.” How is whale’s wandering related to the tide or a shoal of small fish? What kind of interaction is there among different species of whales? We human beings have attempted to fully understand this fellow creature in the sea both during and since the age of whale fishing.
In a live cell imaging experiment, a luminescent probe replaces a transmitter. We put a luminescent probe on a specific region of a biological molecule and bring it back into a cell. We can then visualize how the molecule behaves in response to external stimulation. Since luminescence is a physical phenomenon, we can extract various kinds of information by making full use of its characteristics.
Cruising inside cells in a supermicro corps, gliding down in a microtubule like a roller coaster, pushing our ways through a jungle of chromatin while hoisting a flag of nuclear localization signal --- we are reminded to retain a playful and adventurous perspective at all times. What matters is mobilizing all capabilities of science and giving full play to our imagination. We believe that such serendipitous findings can arise out of such a sportive mind, a frame of mind that prevails when enjoying whale-watching.

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